Under The Veil of Night

"The atmosphere is very suffocating," Jeff commented leisurely. Contrary to the others’ tensed expression, he appeared unconcerned with the matter. It was as if he didn’t do anything wrong.

"Jeff, read the situation better," Ayres warned. His expression was terrible. The loss of an arm caused him to feel rather annoyed because his strength lay in his physical strength. Without an arm, he wouldn’t be able to fight to his fullest anymore.

Jeff shrugged. "Lamenting on the past is not going to make things any better."

"Jeff!" James Wells called, his tone was sharp.

Seeing that they were all having solemn expression and unwilling to reply to his joke, Jeff shut his mouth. However, he didn’t even bother putting on proper expression. In his opinion, there was no need to care about what the others would think about him. He has always acted according to his will.

Whether the others wanted to accept him or not, it would be up to them.

When they were talking, Iris walked into the room. Her expression was pale. Compared to the others, hers was even worse.

No one bothered to talk with her. The mission would depend on what she saw in their future and this mission was not any different. However, the end result of this mission nearly annihilated them, so no one cared about this woman anymore.

In their opinion, she was as good as trash.

"Iris, you should use your power better," Jeff decided to speak up after a few seconds. "No one wants you to tell them lies about what you see."

Iris’s face turned somber. She was fearful of these people in this room. Even though they usually acted normal around her, they were all extremely powerful. Killing a girl who didn’t have much gift in physical strength was very easy. Just a snap of their finger and she might have been dead.

In the past, her best friend always stood up for her. It was the existence of her best friend that allowed her to keep moving on in this ruthless world. Ever since her death, Iris always felt that part of her has been lost.

Every single day was a torture for her. She was too afraid to keep on staying in this place, but she didn’t have any other place to move.

Click!

The door was opened and two people came inside. They immediately stood up better. Even Jeff decided to stand up properly because he knew that Ferdinand was a former soldier. Standing limpidly was clearly out of the question if he wanted to survive under this man.

Ferdinand swept his gaze across the room. When he heard the news regarding Pen’s death, his mood turned sour. Although Pen has been extremely quiet and unreadable, he was very efficient in his work. The strength of Pen has always been one of the greatest that he ever trained.

"Iris, come over," his deep voice rang.

Iris’s body shook terribly. She was too scared at what might be coming to her from Ferdinand. He was merciless, even to women.

Moving her legs slowly, she stood in front of the man. The sheer pressure from the man’s presence alone was already more than enough to make her feel suffocated.

"I’m he-here, Sir."

Ferdinand looked at the young woman coldly. Without thinking, he raised his hand and slapped the woman’s face.

SLAP!

Iris fell to the floor at the result of the slap. She could feel the burning sensation on her cheek as tears rolled out of her eyes. It was so painful. Biting her lips, she tried her best to stop the tears, but it was futile. More tears poured out and stained her face.

Not far behind her, Vena was standing calmly. Even though she was also a woman, she had learned from a young age that she should never show her sympathy. It would only make herself look weak both for herself and for others.

It was her indifference that allowed her to reach so high in the past.

"See the future again, Iris," Ferdinand ordered coldly.

Propping herself to stand, Iris nodded her head quietly. She wiped her tears as she tried to force her mind to look into the future of the people around her. Right now, all she wanted was to see the future as fast as possible and get away from this place.

Iris focused herself on them. They were staring at her indifferently. Even though they knew that she could see their future, her vision has turned extremely blurry recently. It was as if their future was blocked.

Swish!

The vision in front of her changed drastically to that of a large field. She was stunned to see the changes in surroundings, but what surprised her even more was the stench of blood around her. It caused her to cringe at the horrendous smell it gave.

She was about to cover her nose when she felt a pain. Something had crashed on her body so hard. Her body was pulled to the back when she realized that she was inside the monitoring room. There was blood in front of her along with the continuous coughs.

Her expression turned ugly. She wanted to scream so badly, but she had returned back to the place before. Her eyes widened. It was too soon. She didn’t even spend five seconds in that place to carefully inspect her surroundings. It was weird, but the time she could spend in the vision decreased exponentially.

At the same time, she felt a pang on her head. Her knees fell to the ground as she clutched her head.

"What do you see?" Jeff broke the silent.

Iris wanted to say that she saw one of their’ deaths, but she was not sure who it was. There were a lot of them standing in front of them. All she knew was it should be a guy from the rough hand that she saw.

"I see someone gets wounded," Iris replied.

���Who?"

"I don’t know."

The others: "..." How useless.

Ferdinand glared at the woman coldly. Iris flinched from his stare, but she truly didn’t know who among them the one that she saw was. Seeing her frightened stance, Ferdinand knew better than anyone that she told the truth.

As a former soldier, he had seen the prisoner and could guess their thoughts extremely well. The mental condition of Iris proved to him that this girl would never say any lies because of her weak attitude. However, this caused him another headache.

"I’ll give you the next mission."

"Yes, Sir."

Ferdinand walked away with the guard following behind him. The other members waited until Ferdinand had disappeared before they walked away. There was no need for them to talk with the others as it wouldn’t help them at all.

In the middle, Iris was still shaking slightly. No one came to help her at all. Tears started to roll down once again. She was feeling afraid of Ferdinand and no one was there to help her anymore. From the bottom of her heart, she hoped that her best friend was still here.

She hated this place so much. In this place, they were nothing but chess pieces that Ferdinand could use and throw as he wished.